Biography/ Background

My main
interest is the taxonomical diversity and functional morphology of the
early metazoans generated during the so-called Cambrian
"explosion" (some 540 million years ago), and the phylogenetic
relationships among the major animal groups (phyla) that appeared with
this unique event in the history of the biosphere.

I got
my Graduate Degree in Biology-Zoology (1995) and a Postgraduate Degree in
Palaeontology (1997) from the Complutense University in Madrid. My
first contact with Burgess Shale-type fossils was in the summer of 1994,
when I visited the University of Cambridge, studying soft-bodied
(non-mineralized) fossils from the Lower Cambrian Kinzers Formation of Pennsylvania with
Prof. Conway Morris and early Cambrian organic-walled microfossils from
northwestern Canada with Prof. Butterfield. During the summers of
1995, 1997 and 2000 I excavated at the Burgess Shale(British
Columbia)with the Royal Ontario Museum-Toronto, under the
direction of Dr. Collins. In parallel with my research on soft-bodied fossils,
and due to the scarcity of such type of fossils in Spain, I took a different
topic for my PhD Thesis: the Palaeozoic Porifera from the Iberian Peninsula
(Madrid, 2002). I did a two-year postdoc at the ROM (2003-2004), working with
Dr. Collins on some of the Burgess Shale's most emblematic arthropod fossils (Marrella, Leanchoilia, Isoxys...). Upon
my return to Madrid (2005) I headed a research project for the Spanish Research
Council (CSIC) to search for Ediacaran, Burgess Shale and Orsten-type fossils
in Spain, and study their palaeogeographic implications. My latest work comes
from collaborations with the South Australian Museum in excavating and studying
the early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte in Kangaroo Island (South
Australia), having joined The University of Adelaide in January 2013 as a Senior Research Fellow. In late 2013 I become an ARC Future Fellow, with a 4-year research project entitled "Testing our knowledge on the dawn of Animal life: evidence from the fossil record against modern ecological and morphological analogues". It focuses on comparing the Ediacara biota and the Emu Bay Shale and other Cambrian lagerstätten from a palaeocological perspective, and includes experiments on Modern marine invertebrate predation to test against what we observe in the fossil record.

Research Interests

Current
postgraduate/Honours students

Felicity Coutts, PhD:
"Palaeoecology, morphometrics and phylogenetic relationships of Parvancorina
from the Ediacaran of the Flinders Ranges (South Australia)"

James Holmes, MPhil:
"Palaeobiogeographical and palaeoecological links between Cambrian
Laggerstätten, with emphasis on the Emu Bay Shale biota from Kangaroo Island,
South Australia”

Lily Reid, Honours: "Palaeoecology of an
Ediacaran community from Crisp Gorge (Flinders Ranges), focused on the
enigmatic Dickinsonia"

*García-Bellido, D. & Collins, D. 2001. A new study of Marrella splendens from the Burgess Shale, British Columbia, Canada. Abstracts of oral presentations and posters of the Third International Conference on Trilobites: p. 13. Oxford, United Kingdom.

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